ya know.. i try not to make this stuff up ... lol ..

but i thought the pores were on the reverse ... but hey.. seeing is believing ...

ken

ps: i am trying hard not to harangue you for be and UNbeliever ... lol ..

Ahahahaha AHhahahahahah.
I never saw it before, and I'm not sure of what I see. I'm no scientist. It isn't that I am/was an UNbeliever, just I find it so interesting when hosta act like ..... we do.

I don't know nothin about no pores. Figure that one out. :)

And, what do you think I'm seeing? Condensation of moisture on the surface of the leaf, with it drying into salts? It is something "beyond my ken" as the saying goes.

I'm seeing a Spartacus that looks happy! Do you like it, Mocc? Interesting photographs. I know it's not, but in the pics, the little shiny moisture masses look like what some of my leaves look like after getting hit by really tiny pieces of hail; Like little dings on a car's paint.

Don B.

Moccaslanding you've a very purty collection! I do have to see Spartacus is def my fav! The pics are just lovely you've captured the glittery sweat perfectly!

Last year I saw what looked like shimmering beads of water on some of my daylily flowers. I guess you could call it sweat? I don't know, but it sure looked pretty.

Karen

I'm amazed on how your hostas have grown Mocc! How many different ones do you have now?

Gesila

I don't know much about these things but I recon its condensation, something to do with dew points and humidity or somfink! After a warm dry humid day here I see at the tips of the leaves a drop of water, it can be quite beautiful when caught in the evening sun.

I would be with Ken as the stomata are on the underside of the leaves, Co2 enters and o2 and water vapor exits these openings.

Mabey they need to sweat differently in Alabama lol.

Denis

i think i learned a term in science a few years ago ... transpiration?

is that what you are making stuff up about?

or, speculative fabulation?

class is now in session

welcome to spec fab 101

let's talk potting stations instead

*ken's evil twin*

Ahhhh, shucks, well, that false alarm lasted a while longer than my tussle with the "seedling" that turned out to be Autumn Frost. Sigh.....no great breakthroughs here.

But it was something new to my experience, and like the person I am, I build a great story around it, but then reality sets in.

Okay. A little more information on the setting where this occurred. It was partly catching a warm air blow from the a/c outside condenser unit. The shade was provided by a small Japanese maple. There was a bird bath with them beneath the maple, with the fan blowing across the bath. It was about 95% humidity. Stepping outside put a sheen on the skin.

Just like Sherlock Holmes can tell the exact angle of the sun or whatever by some exhaustive process of deduction, I intuitively jump to the conclusion with perfect expectation of being right.

However, I concede to the gentleman from Ireland and the seer from Michigan. Condensation it is,

I'll look for sweat on hostas another time.

I can just hear the hosta troops saying, "Never let them see you sweat." Boy are they tough.

Or do you have some aphids up in the trees that misting sap?

-Babka

No, I won't edit the one above, it was long enough. The perfect length. Instead, I address some remarks that I enjoyed tremendously.

Yes, Bragu, I like to fabulate, suppose, imagine, and go off tilting at windmills too. It is fun, and I truly hope that everyone contributes their ideas and actual potting bench/area. Potting is a back breaking chore, and saving my aching back and some time doing such a chore, I like to see what others manage to do. I'm giving that thread a plug in case someone skipped it.

Don, I love Spartacus. It opened like a spear, the first leaf shooting upward 6 inches in one day--while I wasn't looking, of course. It still has softer colors, but I expect them to toughen up in the next week.

Then there is Fair Maiden. When you first mentioned it, I thought "Ahhhh, another cute small medium with a white margin." But this one is different. The way the white pattern is laid on, you'd think this was a giant of a hosta with lots of vigor aggression movement. Like a bantam rooster perhaps. If it were not for the feminine name, it would be a macho hosta.

Milly, I guess I responded to your post about Spartacus? I got it dormant along with a dormant Fair Maiden from GreenMt in late April this year. The sun was mild-to-cool and we had buckets of rain, so new arrivals responded quickly. These particular two are standouts.

Gesila, I don't have a count of the number. No total. I will try to honestly count the unique hosta that are in the garden. Not counting duplicates either purchased or split (heck, I'm combining pots of duplicates not splitting). I don't know where to report my grand total, do you? :) The ones pictured in this thread are all new arrivals this spring. They haven't made it to the big general display area. I choose to keep them close to hand where I can observe them, become familiar with them. I decided that was necessary for me as much as them, because some new arrivals from last year went too quickly into the general population, and the personality did not stick in my head. I missed a whole year of their development. You know I started this addiction in 2012, and like Faye/AlmostHooked said elsewhere, she started with a few, and suddenly she just went crazy.....I think you understand where Faye and myself are coming from, don't you. We've been ENABLED!!

APHIDS??? Yikes! I'm going to pretend I didn't read that. WW :/

In your original post you said that you usually try to give them a drink before the afternoon sun hits them. I assume you mean you do that daily, even this early in the year?

Do your hostas get one period of solid sun during the day or do you get dabbled sun throughout the day?

Great pictures and very interesting stuff.

Cold condenses, this explains the 'sweat' beads. On moist days I see the same effect on hosta mostly early in the AM even when the temperature is in the 40s. I am sure it would take an awful lot to build up a sweat at that temp. and it is impossible on hosta at any temp.

Aphids in the tree? I hope not, but I've had scale in a couple of house plants, and their sticky goo is very hard to wash off. I'll check the leaves of the hosta as I sprinkle them this afternoon.

Santa, my hosta, the ones concerned in this episode, are watered in the afternoon because that is when they get the brunt of the heat. It keeps the roots cooler in their black pots, although I minimize exposure of the black to any sunlight. We are headed into the 90s for a stretch of days here, and these are new hosta, around 30 days in this environment, so I don't want them stressed. I do not water every day ALL of the hosta. But the new arrivals in the staging area which get morning sun until 1 pm yes, I water them every day. Anything that gets direct light for a couple of hours after the morning hours, I water it. That means the blues do not get watered every day, nor do the ones located in the prime morning sun spots.

With the main chunk of the garden, I cool the area where the pine tree was removed, because now there is absolutely no shade for them from about 1pm on to sunset. Even the golds and the whites would go crispy on me without some sort of relief. I'm arranging the big patio umbrellas in this area, for the next month they will be the shade source. After that, the 10 foot tall lattice screen will be the "broken shade." They will get some light, air circulation (important to avoid southern blight, believe me), and I can begin to think about a better way to keep them watered than dragging hoses. I almost broke my Venus the other day dragging a hose. Let me see if I have a picture of the umbrella setup this year.

Santa, since you are in zone 8b, that is what Mobile used to be until they revised the map. You might have the same conditions as I do. I turned some hosta into crispy critters in the past two seasons, but so far only a few have sunburned. The new arrivals fully leafed out when they came were so tender that even with the milder sun of 3 weeks ago, they ended up with sunburned leaves that now have holes in them. Mea culpa. Now I am careful to toughen them up better. And water them regularly, and keep them in cooler spot. Mostly I minimize exposure of the black pots to sunlight.

BTW, if you want your gold hosta to pop, get a yellow umbrella which will filter the light in an astonishing way. Eye candy. The only picture I find is just before I located the yella brella, it is leaning against the fence.

Jonny, I had not watered the hosta, and it was certainly not cold where they are. The exhaust of the a/c fan is hot rather than cold, it is a heatpump. The presence of the birdbath filled with water could have been evaporating and condensing on the leaves I grant you that. But with such high humidity, I'm not sure how that would work. I'm used to the early morning dew on leaves, this was in mid to late afternoon.

Mocc,

It is the moisture in the air. When it is cold enough (cold or cool are irrelevant terms) to reach the dew point then dew will form. The hosta were hotter than the dew point and when you put them into the shade they reached the dew point and formed dew drops.

This explains why when I go out in the morning at 6 o'clock or earlier and it is often in the 40s (global cooling), if the dew point is reached the grass will have dew drops and if it gets to be 95 degrees at your house it can still rain...because the moisture level has reached the point where the air cannot hold moisture (water) any longer and it rains. Barometric pressure factors into it as well, but generally speaking all you need to do is get the dew point (usually only given on hot days here) and if the temperature gets down to that number or below rain, drizzle, thick fog or dew is certain. Not very much moisture in the air and it doesn't rain and you don't get dew that beads on your hosta very nicely and glitters unless it gets cold enough. A lot of moisture, but temps well above the dew point then no dew for you.

Your birdbath and a/c have an extremely miniscule and negligible effect on moisture in the air and do not affect the humidity.

Right now the dew point here is 50 degrees and the humidity is 58%. There is a bank of heavy rain and thunderstorms headed this way and will be on top of me in about 1/2 hour. The moisture will surely shoot to 100% when it rains and the dew point will go up higher than the temperature which will drop as the storm approaches.

Barometric pressure is 29.78 inches of mercury and dropping fast and the temp is 57 degrees. The sun has faded and my 'puppy' is headed for her crate to ride out the storm she senses is coming.....and since the low tonight will be close to 46 degrees, surely there will be beads of 'sweat' on my hosta, grass, tree leaves...but not on me.

Jon, more details on the 6 o'clock report.

Guttation. Either that or they're sweating because slugs are comin' at 'em.

tj

In Canada we call that morning dew . Not to be mistaken for mountain dew or home brew . Love your Fair Maiden Moc, now I have to go look for mine to see if the color is the same

93% humidity, 56 degrees, dew point 57 and my hosta are sweating profusely.

Can you put a sheet of paper or something (mini umbrella?) over those leaves and see if the paper gets those crystals?... curious.

-Babka

use one of those umbrellas that come in those cool drinks!

dave *I know, no help at all*

let us know.. in a few weeks.. if you have little brown dead specks on the leaf surface ... i have another theory ... but i dont want your head to explode.. unless you note the specks ...

ken

Mocc, I've been studying your pictures with more scrutiny. I've expanded all pics in order to magnify and have found numerous "pin-prick-like" dots that appear inside the "tiny droplets" ... it looks like sweat/droplets when viewing without magnification.

I've also been studying/reading The Field Guide To Hostas and there was a reference to signs of cold damage that had me interested in your pics in particular.

Grey Ghost, Surfer Dude, etc. all have these tiny holes. Are they/could they be chew marks or something else? I'm very interested in learning how they got there and why. It could be I'm the only one seeing these? (I'm using the pinch function on a tablet to expand.)

I just found this thread which addresses my own question. Mocc, this is a must read I think. Ken, you might remember this thread? Sorry to dredge up unpleasant memories, but perhaps you can shed some light?

Here is a link that might be useful: Tiny pin prick holes in hostas 2010 thread

Ken, I've only just read your post! uh oh...too late?:-(

I didn't believe it, but I just looked around outside and...

{{gwi:1001444}}

Striptease is sweating

{{gwi:1001445}}

Regal Splendor too..

{{gwi:1001446}}

Blue Hawaii, amazing....

{{gwi:1001447}}

Great Expectations, Holy Cow!

{{gwi:1001449}}

Elegans; get a towel..

{{gwi:1001450}}

June!!!

{{gwi:1001451}}

Earth Angel, Earth Angel...will you be mine. Sorry, flashback.

{{gwi:1001452}}

Hard to 'Inspire Greatness' when you're sweating so much.

{{gwi:1001453}}

The noids, the noids; oh the humanity...

{{gwi:1001454}}

Frances Williams even.

{{gwi:1001455}}

It must be hot in those 'Golden Meadows'

{{gwi:1001456}}

Blue Angel, Blue Angel..

{{gwi:1001457}}

Even one of my small Victories.

{{gwi:1001458}}

Abiqua Drinking Gourd...

Why, I even saw some dead branches sweating. When I'm wrong I'm really wrong, hosta really do sweat.

Jon

About the pictures in the old thread from 2010. I saw some of the pictures there with holes. Those holes are what I identify as saw fly larva dining, and there was some silver filigree (not slime) in the pot beneath, their little trails. But I have seen none of that, although we have a lot of saw flies in the area. I see them every day in fact. That's how I became aware of an insecticide put out by Bayer, in a blue bottle, I can go pick it up but I cannot remember the name. Also ammonia would be a good thing to use.

So. Ken. What is it which will blow my mind if I see the spots?
Go for it.

Jon-
That water is coming from somewhere else, not from inside the hosta leaf. In your photos, the stuff all around them appears to be wet too.

-Babka

This post was edited by Babka on Thu, May 22, 14 at 23:36

Jon, you better get more than a towel for Elegans! after you turn the sprinkler off, maybe you can tackle the two cutworms that are sitting on top of the tree detritus on the leaf and search the surrounding area for more - ugh! Beautiful hosta you have there but you really shouldn't work them so hard! Lol

No way, that is hostasweat in Jon's garden. They are sweating so profusely, they are humidifying the immediate surroundings with their hostasweat!! It only LOOKS like rain...But it's hostasweat...

Don B.

Jo, the cutworms (I call them winter moth caterpillars, six of one, half dozen...) washed down from the maple tree which was sweating as well.

Thanks Don, these Sweaty People are annoying. First you tell them hosta can't sweat and they disagree; you then agree with them, and they say you are faking it. I give up, I can't win.

Jon

Jo, if you see this, would you please explain what "uh oh, too late" refers to?

I hate to keep holding my breath here. My hostas are turning blue.
:)

In the pictures I took, I can see the pits in the leaf surface once I magnified them.

Mosquitos drinking hosta blood?

Hi, Mocc. It was in reference to Ken's comment above regarding the dots. . . which I read after I had already posted. The spots reminded me of foliar fungus which is more prevalent in hot, humid climates such as humid areas of zones 7-9 of the United States. M. Zilis states that some fungi infect leaves already damaged by sunburn, frost, spring desiccation burn, and other problems.

After reading Ken's comments I immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was thinking the same thing about the dots...but he did not return to refute my observations or offer more information. It was left cryptic.

There are good examples on page 358 of the Field Guide To Hostas but it is copyrighted so I can't take a photo to show you.

The uh oh was like "too late the cat's out of the bag" because I mentioned what Ken said about having another theory that would "make your head explode .... unless you note the specks".

Does this explanation make sense? If you re-read Ken's post first and my link next (if you haven't already) it should help.

I'm having a dickens of a time trying to get Ken to answer subsequent questions when he drops in on a post...the most recent on Knockout. He's off like a racehorse to some other forum, I'm sure and could possibly forget where he was? I dunno! :-)